90% of primary schools are Catholic

IN the last five years more than 50 primary schools have opened around the country, mostly in areas where new communities have grown around housing developments.

Just over half of them are multi-denominational, with 19 of them under Educate Together’s patronage. Multi-denominational schools — where children of all faiths and none have equal access to enrolment, and instruction in each child’s religion is generally done outside school time — now account for about 2% of the country’s 3,169 primary schools.

But while they dominate new schools being developed, Catholic bishops are patrons to 13 new primary schools in the same five years and one in every four of the 100 to open in the last decade. Although slightly falling as a proportion due to other models, 90% of all primary schools are still under Catholic patronage.